»Celebration Rock« by the Canadians Japandroids has turned out to be the doozie promised by the single »Younger Us«, which had been on the internet for quite some time. It’s made of eight catchy, fast, euphoric anthems about the enthusiasm of youth, all accompanied by the incredible energy of the old Sonics. Sometimes it’s a bit more noise, like Sonic Youth, but the sound always hits the listener in the utmost immediate way. The big advantage of minimal-garage-instrumentation (the band only consists of two musicians) is that every change in sound has its very own meaning. Every cymbal, every nuance of distortion, has a special function in the songs; the Japandroids make the most direct music imaginable. And even though the music doesn’t leave much room for experiments, even though all the tracks sound a little alike and even talk about the same things, the reduction to drums, distorted guitar and croaking singing is – surprisingly – never boring. The tracks on the album’s second half are the slightly better ones and are called »Adrenaline Nightshift« and »The House That Heaven Built«. »Celebration Rock« is framed by fireworks, which seem to say without irony: Let’s rock like in the good old days, not think, just feel, live. Well, then: we’ve got the soundtrack for it now!
Celebration Rock
